Album Review- The Specials

I rate 2019’s Specials reunion album Encore highly. It got mixed reviews (the three-star review on Allmusic qualifies it for inclusion on my ‘underappreciated’ list.). While a reunion album can sometimes start off with excitement vibes (the Damned’s “Evil Spirits” for example), I think Encore really stands up as a standout record. Covid changed plans for millions, and so the Specials follow up was not what it was supposed to be. Instead, the band decided to do an album of covers with a focus on protest songs, and specifically staying away from Dylan and Lennon and Guthrie for more obscure choices. But even then, Protest Songs 1924-2012 is not an expected album. The Specials have largely been defined by their debut album and that is a sound that is absent here. After that initial shock, one realizes that the listener should move on. Terry Hall expanded his sound in Fun Boy Three and the Colourfield and artists change and grow. Secondly, the band’s core is Hall, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter. In a world of dubious reunion lineups, no doubt this is the core of the Specials. The album’s concept recalls Chumbawamba’s English Rebel Songs 1381-1984 but that album was quite different from anything else- largely a capella or at least minimal in instrumentation and largely pre-19th Century. Most of the Specials’ selections tend to the obscure, even if the artists referenced are not- Staples Singers, Leonard Cohen, Talking Heads, Big Bill Broonzy, Frank Zappa, Rod McCuen, and Bob Marley, for example. I suppose that the criticism of lead single Freedom Highway holds for the album. A poppy sound throughout with a lack of gravitas. On Everybody Knows, the band mimics Cohen to little positive or negative effect (and from the reviews I read, no one is particularly fond of the original either, which I strongly disagree with. I love the original). Black Brown and White is strong and would have fit on Encore. It is a bit sing-songy, but like the best songs here, it sticks in the listener’s ear. It should be no surprise that the song’s biggest impact is pushing the listener to Broonzy’s original. Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around is one of the stronger song - bridging 60s protest and gospel and modern sensibility, though the a capella song may recall the Housemartins more than punk rock. The album has a couple of more highlights. - My Next Door Neighbor which is almost old time late 50s Jump Blues and Soldiers Who Want to Be Heroes- which is an anti-war song that could have been written in 1971 (as it was) or 2007 or 1917 for that matter and these songs are probably the closest the band gets to Chumbawamba’s agit-prop non- traditional pop. Critics don’t generally like (or at least “get”) the former, but somehow it works. The latter is perhaps more shocking 50 years later -saved by two things- released in perhaps the height of anti-war sentiment in the US and written by Rod McKuen, as strong tunessmith as anyone. The album ends with “Get Up Stand Up”. Now, I would warn most artists to avoid Marley (and Dylan and Bowie), but I doubt I will find too much criticism on this cover. The band brings it to a crawl and Golding performs the lyrics in such a way, the listener is hanging on his every word. For those who are diehard fans of that first Specials record, I would be remiss not to mention that Neville Staple has continued a solo career that is largely grounded in 2-Tone style ska for Cleopatra Records. He has a new record as well, which isn’t particularly boundary breaking but worth a listen if you fit the description of the listener above.